I watched the January 26, 2016 FBI footage and Finicum definitely attempted to run the roadblock, almost striking an agent who jumped in front of him.

He left the vehicle immediately walking several yards away covered by multiple agents. He seems to have put his hands down for some reason and the agents shot him dead.

A tragic loss of life after what appears to be anything but a routine traffic stop (some say an ambush) following weeks of peaceful negotiations. There is an on going investigation to assess the actions of the police.

My military training to “repel boarders” justifies the use of lethal force when faced with aggressive potentially deadly combatants. Law enforcement receive similar training and I can understand interpreting Finicum’s actions as aggressive, but is it really possible that the overwhelming presence of FBI and State Police agents considered the actions of Finicum as “potentially deadly?”

All I know for sure is that I am deeply disturbed by these last few moments of a good man’s life and have lots of unanswered questions:

Why did law enforcement choose to escalate the situation after weeks of peaceful talks?

Why did law enforcement setup and ambush Finicum and company when there was no immediate danger to life or property?

What was the government’s imperative to force a conclusion?

What does “productive beneficial use” mean?

What were the occupiers trying to accomplish at the refuge?

Image created by Joelle Mancuso

What are the opposing claims of the government and the ranchers?

What originally gave the ranchers the right to ranch on this land generations before and what changed?

What are the “natural rights” that the LaVoy kept talking about?

Was this just another “crazy standoff” or are these the actions of patriots? Now that a life has been sacrificed, I challenge you to look deeper and ask hard questions.

When I first met them, the Pattersons were just a typical low-middle-class California family. But they really cared about raising their children (3 adopted and 1 natural born) the right way and always had lots of questions and seemed to work hard at going the extra mile to learn or do their very best.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the Pattersons are not without their faults; but I have known them for 15 years now, and I have watched a pattern develop over that time: good people, doing the best they know how, trying to do better when they can.

That is all we can ask of Americans – be good, do your best in the moment, and do better in the future. Freedom is built and maintained on this formula.

I have shared the Patterson’s story before, but it has been almost a year now since Lynn Patterson passed away, and I have been closely watching to see how Symbria and Sara (wife and last child at home) would hold up. If they are examples of true Americanism, we are in a good place.

Symbria and Sara continue to champion Food Freedom in Utah, slowly winning back basic freedoms we were all born with. I hope I can stay the course as strongly as these two women are.

Based on the evolution of the United States government and our current standing in the world, it is likely that short of President of the United States, the most important office in the federal government and the least known federal government office is the Government Accountability Office.

The person appointed as the director of this office is known as the Comptroller General of the United States. The GAO is a legislative agency and the Comptroller General is appointed by the President with consent of the Senate. This office has been a part of the federal government for almost 100 years (1921) and is limited to a 15-year term.

The Comptroller General has the power of truth and facts. His only job is to provide the president and congress with the nation’s state of financial affairs and to make recommendations.

With the gravity of our financial picture today, you would think that the CG would be the most quoted man in Washington. But Mr. Eugene Louis Dodaro, the current CG has had little press exposure since his appointment in 2010.

Based on our ever deteriorating financial position as a nation and as individual citizens combined with the projected negative outcome of continuing such a course, you would think that the CG would use his position, like an ancient Old Testament prophet to shout warnings from the roof tops.

But while Mr. Dodaro is eerily quiet considering the role of his office, others are not so demure. One of the most outspoken Comptroller Generals was David Walker (1998 to 2008) who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

Mr. Walker resigned his office in 2008 as a form of protest after it became clear that neither the Republican President or the Democratic controlled House and Senate where taking his continued and constant reports seriously.

For nearly his entire 10 years in office, his counsel and factual data were received with a kind of economic apathy so common in the halls of government.

As the keynote speaker at the February 2, 2005 National Press Club Outlook Conference, CG Walker began his remarks with these words:

I’m sad to say that since I last spoke on this issue here at the National Press Club back in September of 2003, our nation’s long-range fiscal imbalance has deteriorated significantly. Furthermore, as you all know, most state and local governments also have their own fiscal challenges and are having to make increasingly difficult choices.

We now confront three large and interrelated national deficits. The first is a large federal budget deficit. The second is a growing balance-of-payments deficit. And the third is an alarming personal savings deficit. Frankly, it’s easy to dismiss government deficits and debt as someone else’s problem.

But in my view, every American has both a personal reason and a civic responsibility to become more informed and involved in the coming debate over our collective fiscal future.

These kinds of efforts to educate the government and the press were follow-up by using his office and influence as CG to kick-off the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour beginning in 2005 and expanding to 40 cities.

After 10 unproductive years warning everyone who was supposed to listen, you know…the president, congress, governors, the American people, Mr. Walker resigning his post.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO WATCH VIDEO FOR FREE

In 2008, he elevated his personal crusade to educating the American people about the disaster that awaits us by joining forces with the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

One of their most impactful projects was the I.O.U.S.A. documentarythat outlined where we were fiscally in 2008. THIS IS A MUST WATCH! This rare peek into the past validates the present and gives us a clear picture of the future.

WARNING: This is a bit like knowing that a tornado is about to hit but being afraid to go outside to the storm shelter.

NATIONAL DEBT 2008

I said earlier that in my opinion–considering where we are today–that second ONLY to the president, the most important office in government is the Comptroller General and the GAO.

I say this because without a clear picture of where we are and a plan for a solid financial foundation, it matters little what laws Congress passes, if we do not have the money to execute them. It makes little difference what disasters happen in the world, we will not be able to help them if we can’t even help ourselves.

It won’t matter how much you have paid into Social Security or how much you deserve government funded medical services or disability assistance or a hundred other “entitlements,” none of these will be available if we do not make serious changes now.

America has had terrible debts in the past and we have pulled out of them. What we had then that we don’t seem to have now is the WILL TO CONTROL OURSELVES.

NATIONAL DEBT 2014

The GAO has the information that we need to “Man Up” and face the music. If the CG would take a relentless course of action, even at the risk of being fired, it could make a real difference.

But even more important, if we as citizens and American families took the same information and adjusted our lives accordingly, that would have lasting impact.
Truthfully, neither the President nor the Comptroller General have the power that we do collectively–remember they both work for us.

So the real question is what are you personally going to do about it? If you don’t start making changes within the next 60 days…don’t bother. This problem is at OUR COLLECTIVE door step now and will not be ignored.

I hope one of two things happens right now:

1) I hope I am preaching to the choir and you are already engaged

or

2) I hope I offend you enough that you will try to prove me wrong (get ready for a surprise!)

Here are a few questions, suggestions, and recommended readings that you seriously need to consider:

QUESTIONS:

How much of the information in the video did you actually know?

Are you a part of the problem?

What is your savings rate?

What do you do with your savings?

How could you “tighten the belt” and either save more or pay down debt?

Do you know what you total personal debt is?

What is the difference between consumer debt and business or legitimate debt?

How can you make more money (and save more)?

What is your investment plan?

Can you afford not to have an investment plan?

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Creatively consider what you could live without to reduce your cost of living down to 60% or 70% of your income (this includes taxes). I challenge you to try an experiment: go through all of your possessions and sell everything you don’t need. You will be shocked at how much you can raise. This becomes the beginning of your savings plan.

2. Decrease your mortgage payment even if it means down-sizing (I promise it will not kill you).

3. Start a savings plan TODAY. Savings are the life blood of any economy.

4. Stop paying for things that your kids can pay for themselves (yes, that means they will have to earn their own money).

5. Review all family and individual activities that require money.

a. Do you really need these items? Are they vital to life?

b. If yes, who and how should these things be paid for?

c. Who benefits the most by paying for them?

d. How does paying for things increase awareness and make a child responsible?

If free is not enough, I don’t know what it will take to get you to check this out…seriously, if you have any desire for self improvement (boy, I do) I strongly encourage you to spend a few minutes to see just what this is.

Just opt-in at the upper right hand corner of this blog and follow the instructions.

NO credits cards!

NO commitments!

NO sales gimmicks!!

NO bait and switch!!!

Just an honest effort to share with you the most revolutionary concept in mentoring and personal or self development EVER!

These are some of the hottest mentors available. And outside of the network their fees run from $200 to $50,000.

There are currently over 50 mentors and over 100 courses available to choose from. While our freemium (free content) is not yet available, anyone can review the mentors and the courses.

And for those who opt-in, I have a special gift that will give you full access to the mentoring vault FOR FREE!Opt-in now in the upper right hand corner of this blog.

[This is the transcript of a lecture I am preparing to give around the country. If you are in Las Vegas, contact me and I would be happy to deliver this lecture to your group over the next 60 days.]

The world is changing faster than ever. What used to take decades, is now taking years or months. And indirectly as a result of these changes, we have two looming crises, the elderly retirement crisis and the college-grad employment crisis.

Rumor has it that corporate America is not a safe place to work anymore. We’ve seen our friends get laid off or maybe we’ve been laid off. Some of those who are still working have had their pay cut. So Americans are overworked and underpaid and they seem to have less time and less freedom.

And there’s something wrong with society when we can measure at a national level, a 35% increase in the chance of a heart attack every Monday morning as people rush off to their jobs.

As of April 3, 2015, the Economic Policy Institute reported that,

In a complex economy, conventional measurements fall short. At 14.5 percent, the unemployment rate of workers under age 25 was slightly over twice as high as the overall unemployment rate, 6.7 percent.

But in today’s labor market, the unemployment rate drastically understates the weakness of job opportunities. This is due to the existence of a large pool of “missing workers”(3.3 million-adds at least 3 points)—potential workers who, because of weak job opportunities, are neither employed nor actively seeking a job.

In other words, these are people who wouldbe either working or looking for work if job opportunities were significantly stronger. Because jobless workers are only counted as unemployed if they are actively seeking work, these “missing workers” are not reflected in the unemployment rate. http://www.epi.org/publication/missing-workers/

Technology is accelerating and job security is rapidly declining. It just doesn’t seem like the 20th century models of making a living are as reliable as they used to be. In nearly every aspect of our lives we are adopting newer and better way to do things, but when it comes to earning a living, we are still stuck in the old ways.

We live in the greatest country on the planet but there are a lot of people sitting around being cynical. I say get a clue, there is a huge difference between “3rd world problems” and “1st world problems.” People are complaining and whining about the upsets of the old model when the obvious conclusion is to leave it and embrace the new model, the new economy, and that is what we are here to talk about today.

Since so much of our lives revolve around our work and the way we make our living, many people are thinking, there just has to be a better way.

The biggest challenge facing our world today is not making money, but what to do with all of the displaced unemployed people. With all of this transformation around us, people are being forced to make changes in employment and lifestyle, but they are frozen by indecision, afraid of making the wrong new career choice or afraid they don’t have the right skill set.

It’s time to face the truth: the industrial age is dead.

And as a result, going to school to be educated for employment is fast becoming an obsolete idea. A steady paycheck and the security of a single employer is an anemic industrial age idea.